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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23584735">Spirited Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceRavioli/pseuds/SpaceRavioli'>SpaceRavioli</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cardcaptor Sakura</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Magic, Spirit World, Spirits, Transformation, appear once, they just like</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 22:42:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23584735</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceRavioli/pseuds/SpaceRavioli</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Clow Reed had told her he couldn’t help her. At least not in the way she desired. </p><p>“Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can not remember it” Clow had said to her with a calm smile in his lips and a knowing look in his eyes.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kinomoto Sakura/Li Syaoran</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Spirited Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>One Shot based on the movie Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The tea had been delicious, just as the cheesecake the mage had given her. She had always loved sweets, especially those made with such apparent love. But even though they had filled her stomach to the brim and sweetened her mouth, she couldn’t be at peace. Hugging her knees in the wooden chair next to the door, Sakura didn’t know what to do.</p><p>Clow Reed had told her he couldn’t help her. At least not in the way she desired.</p><p>At first, when she had arrived at his house, he insisted to make her some tea, saying something about needing the energy to what was to come. Sakura still didn’t know about the magic seal she had given back to the mage, and she still needed some answers for what to do next but eating at that moment had sounded delightful. Even so, it had been a challenge to keep every bite down and to finish the teacup, knowing very well by now that it was better to be as cordial to the habitants there as possible, including all-knowing and powerful mages as Clow Reed.</p><p>“Nothing that happens is ever forgotten, even if you can not remember it” Clow had said to her with a calm smile in his lips and a knowing look in his eyes.</p><p>The wooden chair was starting to be uncomfortable, and it was that feeling plus the sweetness in her mouth that spring her into action.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Mister Mage,” She said, dragging her feet through the wooden planks until she stood next to Clow in his big, red chair. She had almost fallen off the chair but recovered quickly enough that nobody seemingly noticed. “But it’s time for me to go.”</p><p>“Oh, so quickly?” Clow Reed asked with no surprise in his voice, keeping his eyes in the work in his hands. “Just a moment, please”</p><p>“B-but…!” She started but couldn’t continue when her vision started to blurry and her throat itched. First, she started trembling, her shoulders trying to hide her figure. Soon, tears were streaming down her face, wetting her cheeks in rapid fashion. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted to cry until now. “I can’t stay seated while Li-kun is in danger!” Between her sniffs and wailings, it was a miracle Clow understood anything at all. “I have to save him! I h-have to save my family! I still don’t know how to change them back! “</p><p>Sakura scrubbed her eyes with enough force for them to hurt. The little lion and the little bunny on the table stopped their work to look at her with worried faces.</p><p>“Here, it is ready” Clow said with a warm smile on his face while the girl next to him tried to stop the flow of her tears and failed miserably. He grabbed a pair of sharp scissors and cut some reddish thread handed by the little lion. Something pink and funny looking hanging off it. Then, he quickly tied a knot at the end of the thread and raised the result to his eye level to admire his work. He hummed, content. “I am giving this to you, as a present.”</p><p>Confused, Sakura raised her hands as Clow set his work in her hands. Her eyes were wide open and even though they were still glassy, she could make a little, pinkish form. The object in her hands was small but strangely warm and heavy. It made her feel safe instantly. So much that even her tears stopped flowing and she didn’t have the need to hiccup.</p><p>“What’s this?” Sakura slurred a little and blushed for it. She wiped her face with her forearms to erase all evidence that she cried in the first place. And now that she could see the object, she gasped. It was a tiny key, colored a beautiful magenta that almost sparked in her palms. The head looked like a swan with pearly white wings sprouting from it. It was tied to a reddish thread, handmade by the uneven place here and there, forming a necklace.</p><p>“It’s a gift” Clow said, taking Sakura’s attention back. He pointed at the thread. “Your friends made it, so it’s going to keep you safe.”</p><p>Sakura looked over his shoulders, where the golden little bear-lion with wings waved at her next to a snow rabbit curled over some yarn. They looked so happy and proud that it made her want to cry again. She opened her mouth to ask the meaning of the key, but before she could even muster a sound, the windows started shaking violently, as if trying to escape from their hinges. Even the door trembled, making a weird, grumbly sound that startled her.</p><p>“Oh, just in time.” Clow said like nothing unusual was happening. “Would you mind opening the door? We have another guest.”</p><p>Sakura nodded, still a little out of her. She quickly pulled the necklace over her head and almost ran to the wooden door.</p><p>“Li-kun!” Sakura gasped when she opened the door to find his friend standing outside Clow’s house in his wolf form. Her hands flew to her mouth trying to silence a happy shout before running to meet the wolf in front of her. “Are you sure you are okay? Are you hurt?” She asked, looking for apparent wounds. When she was seemingly satisfied, she squeezed his head. She felt even more safer than the feeling the key gave her just by hugging him. “You’re safe! Thank goodness!”</p><p>Sakura tried to clasp her hands against the beast’s neck and grasped tightly strands of brown, dark hair in her fingers instead. Li-kun as a wolf was huge, easily draping his muzzle over her shoulders, no doubt returning the embrace. So she hugged him tighter and hid her face in his strong neck, relinquishing in the feeling of his fur against her skin.</p><p>“Do not scare me like that again, okay?” She whispered against his fur. Li-kun softly growled in return. “I was so worried.”</p><p>Then, he lifted his head and Sakura remembered about Clow Reed. The mage was smiling behind her with the little two animals by his feet.</p><p>Next to her, Li-kun bowed his head. Sakura could see the regret and sorrowfulness in his eyes, set firmly in Clow Reed in front of him. For a moment, she had the need to hug him again as to drive those awful feelings away.</p><p>“I do not blame you for what you did, young wolf.” Clow Reed said with his calm, warm voice. “Just be sure to protect her, understood?”</p><p>Li-kun growled a little again, still bowing to the mage.</p><p>“Well,” Clow Reed turned to Sakura. “I think it’s time for you to return home, and for us to say farewell.”</p><p>Sakura nodded but felt her eyes swelling with tears again. She wanted to go home, with his father and his brother, but she also didn’t want to say goodbye to her new friends. She walked to the little animals and kneeled on the floor in front of them.</p><p>“I promise we will see each other again, okay?” The creatures jumped in her arms when she opened them, one more enthusiastic than the other. Sakura held them tightly to her chest “Kero-chan, Yue-san. I’m so glad I met you both. You helped me a lot.”</p><p>“Take care, Sakura.”</p><p>“Good luck.”</p><p>Then, she turned to Clow and hesitated a little. How does one say goodbye and thank you for everything to someone like the mage?</p><p>Clow Reed answered her question by opening his arms a little. She quickly ran into the embrace. His robes felt a little weird against her, but his arms felt familiar. They vaguely remembered her father, whenever he hugs her while trying to give her courage.</p><p>“Thank you so much, mister Reed” She murmured before breaking the embrace.</p><p>“Do not worry, Sakura. “ He smiled again. “Everything will be alright. “</p><p>“Right!”</p><p>Sakura smiled one last time to her friends before running back to Li-kun.</p><p>She hopped in his back when he bowed for her to do so. Grasping his fur for security and squeezing her legs around his shoulder blades, Sakura still almost fell off the beast when he started running, taken aback by the force of the movement. However, it was not uncomfortable since his fur was coarse but soft, and even though her entire body moved with his, she felt calm and secure.</p><p>If she happened to fall, she knew he would catch her.</p><p>So she wound her hands further, enveloping most of his neck and laying her head against him. The fur tickled her face and warmed her cheeks. Li-kun smelled like raining, like atmosphere and dirt. She remembered the way the air felt before a storm, all electricity and pure oxygen she could not reach otherwise.</p><p>Before she even noticed, he jumped off a cliff, his powerful hind legs giving them the strength to keep running in the air. She was sure that if she raised her arms, she would be able to touch clouds with her fingertips as they kept ascending. But she preferred making little knots in the soft fur beneath her.</p><p>And then, she remembered.</p><p>“Hey, Li-kun. Listen,” She murmured against the fur next to his ear. Sakura was certain he could hear her even against all the wind. “My mom named me Sakura because she loved cherry blossoms. It was her favorite flower. So, I don’t remember much, but we used to go to this park, right? Next to a forest. It had a temple, surrounded by cherry blossom trees.”</p><p>It was not weird for Sakura to talk about her mother. She loved her so much and even if she didn’t recall a lot of her, the stories her father and her brother told her kept the memory alive.</p><p>“My brother told me this story a long time ago. It was about a cherry tree in that temple. It was told to be sacred, taking care of every other living thing in the mountain and hearing prayers that people whispered to it, their hearts full of faith.“ Sakura paused. If she tried hard enough, she could almost recall the temple with the cherry tree in the middle. “But a boy looked after that cherry tree. He kept it safe, tending it and making sure the tree never faltered. No one knows what happened to the boy, but it is said that he stayed as a guardian of the forest, still watching over the cherry blossoms of the mountain “</p><p>Sakura gripped the fur tighter, until her knuckles were white.</p><p>“I got lost once, in the forest, and my brother told me that the boy saved me “ She gulped and tried to bring him closer to her, his warmth making her feel calm and giving her courage to continue.  “He told me that the guardian’s name is Syaoran. Li Syaoran”</p><p>If she closed her eyes, she could see the cherry blossoms petals. And the figure of a wolf behind them.</p><p> “It was you, right?” Sakura whispered “Your name is Li Syaoran”</p><p>And then she was falling.</p><p>Unable to stop it, Sakura watched wide-eyed as she was engulfed by fur. The wild strands flew by her, each of them glowing green like fireflies as they got lost in the night sky above them. They looked gorgeous, making a path of stardust like they were a shooting star.</p><p>But they kept falling, and the fur kept flying off until Sakura was not grabbing a wolf, but green sleeves. Her grip slid off until she found a right hand and hold on with all her strength.</p><p>“Sakura!” Syaoran shouted with glee. His left hand found hers and he intertwined their fingers. They kept falling. “Thank you! I remember!”</p><p>“You do?!”</p><p>“Yes!” Syaoran smiled until his eyes and nose wrinkled. “I remember everything! My name, you, everything!”</p><p>“You saved me that day, right?” Sakura returned his smile, loving the way it looked on his face. She swore to never forget. Then, she laughed. “I got lost, and you picked me up!”</p><p>Syaoran laughed too, and Sakura’s heart made a leap.</p><p>“I carried you back over the temple. “ He whispered when he pulled Sakura closer to him, until their foreheads rested together. She was crying, tears of joy leaving a path behind them. He kept smiling. “I left you in the roots of the cherry tree, where your mother and your brother saw you. “</p><p>“I knew it” Sakura said, closing her eyes.</p><p>They kept on falling, but Sakura couldn’t care less of the ground beneath her, getting closer and closer. All she could think of in that moment was in the happiness she felt just by watching him smile. Syaoran was himself again, he radiated such warmth that even through miles and miles falling through the sky, it enveloped her whole, making her feel complete. Happy, safe, like she had found something she had lost a long time ago, and after years and years of searching, she finally found it.</p><p>Found a way back home.</p><p>Found him.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>First of all... thank you for reading until the end! What are your thoughts? This is my first fanfic in ao3 of the year, and in a while, and of css so I'm a little nervous ahaha</p><p>So I watched Spirited Away like a week ago, and was like, wow this Kohaku guy reminds of Syaoran and then everything just escalate from there. I don't trust myself to write a whole multichaptered fic based on the movie, but this scene was stuck for weeks in my head! So I had to get it out and lo and behold. </p><p>I wasn't sure to keep Syaoran as a dragon or making him a wolf. You see, his clear card is a dragon (or at least i think so) so a dragon also fitted him, but then, well, more than a watery kind of guy he's a sparky shooty kind of guy, so I had to basically invent another story of Sakura ahaha</p><p>Kudos and comments are heavily appreciated!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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